Blood-Stained Low
by Rednih
Summary: Mary Murdock as the Masked Man in Black, the Daredevil of Hell's Kitchen.


Disclaimer: Daredevil and recognizable characters & plots are the property of ABC Studios, Marvel Entertainment, Walt Disney Company, Netflix, et al. No profit is made or infringement intended, only enjoyment.

* * *

Wilson Fisk

When he takes him by the throat, it's a tiny niggling sensation, a subtle absence of something he can't quite put his finger on. He squeezes and feels the vigilante's skin heat in bruising—and then he realizes what's missing.

Wrong. No. Wilson jerks the man in the mask closer, and inches apart he doesn't see it or feel it and knows he's wrong, did something terrible he can never ever come back from.

No Adam's apple.

Wilson releases his grip and throws the– the person away, rapidly stepping back and back until he's beside the wall on the other side of the room.

"Sir?" Wesley asks, but he's too quiet, the beating of Wilson's heart too loud, as he drowns and writhes in shame and rage. His hands are shaking as he looks down, eyes jumping from the feet to the hips, chin, smooth chin, head, lips, legs, no Adam's apple, voice? Voice forced deeper, camouflaging more than identity. Sex. Gender.

No, no. No. No. No.

"We're leaving!" Wilson shouts, staring as she– as the masked hero groans and tries to stand up. No one moves, and he turns and is grabbing the muscle on the left by his shirtfront and swinging before he can even process what he's doing. "Now!" he's screaming. "Leave! Leave!"

Hit, hit, and the man falls to the ground. He moves in and pulls his fist back–

Someone grabs his arm, holding it, and when Wilson screams in rage, it's Wesley's voice saying, "Sir, we have business elsewhere. This matter is finished, yes?"

Sound rushes back, and Wilson lets Wesley tug him back, the guard moaning, the woma–

"Yes," he manages, out of breath and whispering, as he reaches down and re-buttons his suit jacket, simultaneously straightening it and gasping for air. "Problem resolved."

Wesley raises his eyebrows and subtly nods his head towards the area behind Wilson.

"Resolved," Wilson repeats, before pushing past him and striding away. Not running. Walking. In the car, his hands itch to trace his cuff links, but Wesley first holds out a damp cloth to clean off the blood, her blood, this woman. He hurt her, strangled her, hit and kick and threw and beat her bloody. He did.

"Would you like me to call Vanessa and ask her to– ?" Wesley starts.

"No!" Wilson shouts, wringing the cloth in his hands, twisting until the broken skin on his knuckles turns bone white. "Don't. Don't tell her anything."

Wesley looks at him for a long moment and then nods.

"Of course, sir. Not a word."

He needs his painting.

* * *

Foggy Nelson

Maybe it wasn't one of the smoothest transitions in history, but Foggy prided himself on it being resolute and bloodless. No need to worry about him making things awkward after the matter had been settled. Well, there was that one time where he'd all but begged (oh, he'd totally begged) Mary to come with him to his grandparents' anniversary party/family reunion. To be fair though, he'd never explicitly said they were a couple or dating or had dated or that he even wanted to date her (but, oh, he'd wanted to), so it totally counts as bromance, emphasis on the 'b'.

Better as friends? Yes, ok. Sounds good.

So what if his solo missions down under sometimes contained flashes of the infamous "Bloody Mary" and the two nights, one sober, they'd had fun together? It didn't hurt anyone. He missed that intimacy, but in truth they'd just exchanged one kind for another. He was her family, pretty much. And Mary was pretty much his everything. It all evened out.

Then he took off the man in black's mask and found her face staring sightlessly up at him and he just about did something terrible. And he's not that guy, has never really hurt anyone like he wanted to hurt Mary in that moment (not even Billy Shiers in fourth grade when they'd had their 'fight' and Foggy'd trudged home with a bloody nose and absent his left shoe). He thought some terrible things too, cruel stuff he didn't even want to admit to himself because it was so disgustingly awful.

Later, she'll be right. She'll have a point, insane as it is. In that apartment, though, with her bleeding out from everywhere and still hitting at him when he whisper-shouts she needs to go the hospital now, Mary is a lying bitch who gets her rocks off humiliating him for her own sick amusement. She's every woman and girl and old lady who made him feel worthless and pathetic.

"Claire," she says, barks, whispers, pleads. "Claire," she gasps, clutching her side where blood is honest to God sliding out of her like so much strawberry syrup, raspberry syrup, Mary drowning pancakes and waffles in the stuff and inhaling it and grinning that dorky fucking grin, teeth and lips red as bloo–

"Who the hell's Claire?" Foggy manages, covering her right hand with both of his own and adding pressure, as she points with her left at a discarded burner a few feet away.

"She'll help," this stranger who used to be Mary says between teeth gritted tight, red teeth coated in red syrup like Sunday brunches after Saturday nights, Mary laughing behind sunglasses and long red hair and for a moment that year at Columbia he'd had everything, a best friend, a woman he loved who loved him, and then–

"Yeah," Foggy says, moving carefully away and grabbing the phone. "Ok, sure, let's see: Claire. Here we go."

There she is, the masked man, the vigilante of Hell's Kitchen, bleeding out on Mary Murdock's floor with Mary Murdock's business partner and best friend.

It was all just a mask. Probably all the way back, it was this crazy person acting and adapting and Foggy was like a guide to the real world, a cover, a fucking beard. He'd been Mary's beard sometimes, gladly, willingly, assholes in bars, McGropersons all over the city just waiting to get their paws on a pretty blind woman.

"Claire says 10 minutes," Foggy relays, and prior to turning around he's fully intending to just righteously storm out and leave her to the mess she's created, this crazy bitch who's used him from day one and never probably intended to ever quit doing so.

If he hadn't turned around, he could've left, if he hadn't seen her passed out in a legitimate pool of her own blood. He wants to be that guy, just for a minute, just to make it hurt less, the betrayal.

"Jesus," he whispers, his disloyal feet carrying him over and his traitorous hands reaching out to try and staunch the goddamned stab wound. It's no comfort at all, knowing he might be doing the right thing in staying and attempting to help. His best friend's dead.

"God," Foggy then mutters, and it stabs him right in the heart when he automatically winces at the blasphemy Mary's not there to lightly smack him for.

In her place is a stranger he's never met, Mary snorting into her coffee eclipsed by this woman dying as a result of violence and Foggy's own incompetence.

* * *

Jack Murdock

She's got her grandmother's hair, a downy tuft of red, the only color on her whole milk-white squishy baby body. He's gonna smush her, crush her, sit on her for Christ's sake. He'll pull her back from whacking her forehead into the coffee table, and her arm will break in two. List gets longer and longer.

She looks like his ma, like him, so it's Mary, beautiful and precious and deceptively powerful, tiny powerhouse with fire on her head. A charmer too, she is, gummy smiles and then toothy grins and then tiny giggles giving way to breathless laughter, squeals and snorts and a thousand sounds—his girl, his lady, the only person who matters, who looks at him with joy and admiration and love. Beautiful Mary, with those eyes that light up and dim everything else in the room, smart, kind Mary, who always treads the line between gentle and hardass.

Whole life ahead of her, but it keeps narrowing down. With Margaret out of the picture, kid's mother's all but dead, so she's stuck knocking around with her bum father. Got brains, thank the Almighty. Got her paternal grandma's Catholic guilt too, by the looks of it, trying to drag him to confession and Mass. Eucharist! No way. "Your immortal soul," she'll plead, but she goes to her church and he goes to his, tape and chalk and bags and sweat. Blood they share, and blood they know, but hers runs a different direction—upwards, he hopes, not down into gutters.

She learns what he teaches her, painstakingly precise and so eager to please. Maybe he's too lax with some of the footwork, but she's got his hands, his fists, and her head's harder and more stubborn than any of the schmucks hanging around waiting to give her trouble. A doctor, he's thinking. She'd make a great nurse, bedside manner out of this world, but that insatiable curiosity and crazy memory got doctor written all over them.

And then those beautiful blue eyes go dark.

Jack's a poorer son of a bitch for it, that's for certain. People feel it like a sting, there and gone, something filed away somewhere, trotted out on special occasions: the Murdock girl, those church people whisper; Jack's kid, at the gym; that boxer's daughter, on the street; oh, what a tragedy, from the biddies around the building. But for him it's a wound that won't stitch shut, constantly seeping and frequently breaking wide open, his failures as a parent exposed for all who watch her reading with her hands and tapping her way down streets. His penance, if he were a bigger asshole, that's what her blindness would be if it were all about him and his awful life choices.

But it's still Mary, and good days outnumber bad, her smile aimed where she thinks he is at any given time. Jack watches for the anger and depression all the people at the hospital and the groups warned him about, and it's there all right. When he tries to be sneaky, he can sometimes catch her with her face relaxed and it's always a downturned mouth and furrowed brow. Times getting her up in the morning is a hard slog. Days she doesn't crack a joke or say more than a couple sentences. Couple calls from the school, 'altercations' they say, Mary saying stuff she knows better to keep inside her own head. Jack doesn't much like people, sure doesn't always agree with them or think their damn opinions are worth squat and too often shoots his mouth off, but he's not a good role model. Mary's a lot like him, and that's not exactly a good thing if she's ever going to get out of Hell's Kitchen. It's kind of a fight, trying his best to talk around this kid's obstinacy. Logical, his Mary is, and she's passionate about the strangest things, like a redheaded, female Steve Rogers.

Doesn't help she's got her mom's looks. Gonna be tall like him too. He's scared to death about what's around the corner, buys a book or two (or four total maybe) and tries to read them after Mary's in bed, probably pretending to be asleep. Easier for her to stay up late reading, now that she doesn't need lights to see. No woman has ever asked him to buy her monthly stuff, so he has no clue what's what. Seeing it in the store and quickly walking past like it's going to snap out and bite him isn't like knowing what it's even all for, much less someday having to guide his daughter through the whole ordeal. Jack's heart picks up at the nightmare that will be birth control and that's the– the ok stuff, not the shit that might happen anytime to a girl just out and about. Boys shift from potentially beating her up to doing things guys in his haunts still joke about, like they're islands of men with no women or girls or boys around to consider.

Turns out, Jack's none too subtle. Hears at the bodega buying a tomato that one of the Martinez girls in the building across the block was found in an alley. Next morning, it's Mary asking him, "What?" in surprise, after he mumbles something on their way to the store. "What's wrong with it?"

"Little too short, Mare," he says, manning up and saying it properly. "Knees at least, ok?"

She stops right there on the sidewalk, forcing him to hold back too and eventually guide her closer to the buildings to avoid the foot traffic.

"It's at my knees, Dad," she says, "and since when is it a problem how short my skirt is? Remember you saying 'any skirt looks better than slacks come summertime.'"

Jack winces and sets his shoulders back. "Yeah, well, maybe your old man's a fool and– "

"I can take care of myself, all right?" she says heatedly. Then she rolls her own shoulders back, and it's all he can do not to laugh. Like a miniature him, gearing up for a fight. "You taught me. None of these jackasses can– "

"Language!" he says, casting a glance around despite himself, like one of her old church lady friends is hovering nearby just waiting to ream him for not raising his girl right. "And I never said you couldn't– "

"No!" she hisses, and it's the little stamp she gives her cane that shuts him up. "I like this skirt, and you said you liked it too just last month when we bought it, so what are you saying, Dad?"

Jack sighs and rubs a hand over his face. Coward that he is, he can't even look Mary in the face, just stares over her head and tries to figure out what he was trying to say in the first place.

"I just worry, ok?" he ends up with. "You're– you're smart, and your right hook is mean, that's for sure. But. Mare, this isn't a nice place, and you're. . . "

Her mouth goes hard, all but disappears in a tiny slash of anger across her face, and Jack knows he's fucked up big time.

"I'm not a baby!"

"I know you're not! I'm just saying you need to be careful– "

"And I am! Just because I'm blind, doesn't mean I'm stupid!"

Jack heaves a sigh, thinking this was long in coming and wishing they were home instead of barking at each other on the street. "You gotta be twice as careful," he says, and when she huffs in resentment, he adds, "and you can't take any risks you maybe could've before. Bad people all around here. I'm serious, Mary. This isn't a joke."

"Coulda fooled me," she mumbles after a moment. "It's just as funny as all your other ones."

He looks closely at that, and her lips are twitching, so she's being a little smartass. Doesn't make him feel any better, though. Just her way of changing the subject. Agree to disagree.

"Promise me you won't do anything stupid," he says suddenly, "and we'll drop it."

"For now, you mean."

"For now," he agrees easily, smirking.

"Fine. I promise. Now can we go, please? Anything but Ramen, Dad. I swear I'm going to be the first kid who dies of heart failure from Ramen. Do you know how much sodium is in those things?"

Jack laughs, and they start walking again, Mary's arm hooking around his. "No, how much?" he asks.


End file.
